Friday, February 21, 2014

H7N9 Moves North, Guangdong Reports New Cases

Dr. Ian Mackay has already blogged the story, and updated his mapthis morning, on the most northern report of H7N9 to date in China – that of a 50 year-old male poultry farmer from Jilin Province who is reportedly isolated and in stable condition.

It is worth noting that Jilin province lies adjacent to North Korea, a closed society that rarely reports on any public health situations.

While there are a number of media reports on this case (see FluTrackers threadhere), thus far I’ve not found any official statement from the Jilin Provincial authorities. The following (machine translated) report comes from Xinhua News.

Xinhua Changchun February 21 (Reporter Yao Youming) 21, the Jilin Provincial Government Information Office announced that the H7N9 bird flu found in Changchun City's first confirmed case of human infection, which is also confirmed cases of H7N9 bird flu first case of human infection in Jilin .

It is understood that the patient was a 50-year-old man surnamed Liang, currently residing in net Development Zone in Changchun, poultry farming, currently implemented in the hospital for isolation and treatment, the condition is more stable. After investigation of the epidemiological investigation of close contacts of patients have been implemented under medical observation, did not reveal any abnormalities.

Jilin Provincial Government Information Office official microblogging "Jilin release," said the Changchun City CDC received reports of 19 May, the First Hospital of Jilin University, admitted to a pneumonia patient with history of exposure to dead poultry. Changchun City CDC immediately organize relevant personnel to carry out epidemiological surveys and collect patient specimens for testing, the results of human infection of H7N9 avian influenza virus positive by the Jilin Provincial CDC complex, the results are positive. 21 am Chinese CDC review the results as positive feedback.

Jilin Provincial Government has launched the emergency response. Changchun City is fully deployed to implement the emergency response and control measures.

Additionally, Shiloh on FluTrackers has picked up the report of three more H7N9 cases from Guangdong province.

One of the remarkable things about this ad hoc collective we call Flublogia is that there is almost always a volunteer on watch somewhere in the world, 24 hours a day. While I’m sleeping I know that Crof on the West Coast of Canada is up, and blogging, and that 16 time zones ahead of me, Dr. Ian Mackay is keeping a watchful eye from Australia.